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Mystery

American Visa

American Visa

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"American Visa is beautifully written, atmospheric, and stylish in the manner of Chandler . . . a smart, exotic crime fiction offering."--George Pelecanos, author of The Night Gardener

American Visa is a stunning literary achievement. It is insightful and poignant, a book every thoughtful American should read, and once read, read again.--William Heffernan, Edgar Award-winning author of The Corsican

In his search for an American visa, the high school teacher in this novel embodies the dreams and aspirations of many would-be immigrants south of the border. This is a thriller with a social conscience, a contemporary noir with lots of humor and flair. The streets of La Paz have never looked so alive. This is one of the best Latin American novels of the last fifteen years. --Edmundo Paz-Soldan, author of Turing's Delirium

Mario Alvarez is tremendous, an everyman desperate to escape Bolivia's despair who can't elude his own tricks of self-sabotage. At a time when the debate around U.S. immigration reduces many people around the world to caricatures, this singular and provocative portrait of the issue will connect with readers of all political stripes. --Arthur Nersesian, author of Suicide Casanova

Armed with fake papers, a handful of gold nuggets, and a snazzy custom-made suit, an unemployed schoolteacher with a singular passion for detective fiction sets out from small-town Bolivia on a desperate quest for an American visa, his best hope for escaping his painful past and reuniting with his grown son in Miami.

Mario Alvarez's dream of emigration takes a tragicomic twist on the rough streets of La Paz, Bolivia's seat of government. Alvarez embarks on a series of Kafkaesque adventures, crossing paths with a colorful cast of hustlers, social outcasts, and crooked politicians--and initiating a romance with a straight-shooting prostitute named Blanca. Spurred on by his detective fantasies and his own tribulations, he hatches a plan to rob a wealthy gold dealer, a decision that draws him into a web of high-society corruption but also brings him closer than ever to obtaining his ticket to paradise.

Juan de Recacoechea was born in La Paz, Bolivia, and worked as a journalist in Europe for almost twenty years. After returning to his native country, he helped found Bolivia's first state-run television network, served as its general manager, and dedicated himself to fiction writing. Recacoechea is the author of seven novels. American Visa is his first novel to be translated into English.

Armed with fake papers, a handful of gold nuggets, and a snazzy custom-made suit, an unemployed schoolteacher with a singular passion for detective fiction sets out from small-town Bolivia on a desperate quest for an American visa, his best hope for escaping his painful past and reuniting with his grown son in Miami.

Mario Alvarez's dream of emigration takes a tragicomic twist on the rough streets of La Paz, Bolivia's seat of government. Alvarez embarks on a series of Kafkaesque adventures, crossing paths with a colorful cast of hustlers, social outcasts, and crooked politicians—and initiating a romance with a straight-shooting prostitute named Blanca. Spurred on by his detective fantasies and his own tribulations, he hatches a plan to rob a wealthy gold dealer, a decision that draws him into a web of high-society corruption but also brings him closer than ever to obtaining his ticket to paradise.

BIG SLEEP

BIG SLEEP

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Raymond Chandler's first novel, published in 1939, introduces us to Philip Marlowe, a thirty-eight-old private detective moving through the seamy side of Los Angeles in the 1930s. The case involves a paralyzed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail, and murder.
DON'T LOOK BACK

DON'T LOOK BACK

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Don't Look Back is the second novel in Los Angeles Times Book Prize-winning author Karin Fossum's Inspector Sejer mystery series.

"Sejer belongs alongside the likes of Adam Dalgliesh and Inspector Morse--a gifted detective and troubled man."--Boston Globe

At the foot of the imposing Kollen Mountain lies a small, idyllic village, where neighbors know neighbors and children play happily in the streets. But when the body of a teenage girl is found by the lake at the mountaintop, the town's tranquility is shattered forever.

Annie was strong, intelligent, and loved by everyone. What went so terribly wrong? Doggedly, yet subtly, Inspector Sejer uncovers layer upon layer of distrust and lies beneath the town's seemingly perfect façade.

"Psychologically astute, subtly horrifying."--New York Times Book Review

"Build[s] to a heart-stopping conclusion."--Entertainment Weekly















Meet Inspector Sejer: smart and enigmatic, tough but fair. At the foot of the imposing Kollen Mountain lies a small, idyllic village, where neighbors know neighbors and children play happily in the streets. But when the body of a teenage girl is found by the lake at the mountaintop, the town's tranquility is shattered forever. Annie was strong, intelligent, and loved by everyone. What went so terribly wrong? Doggedly, yet subtly, Inspector Sejer uncovers layer upon layer of distrust and lies beneath the town's seemingly perfect façade.

Critically acclaimed across Europe, Karin Fossum's Inspector Sejer novels are masterfully constructed, psychologically convincing, and compulsively readable. They evoke a world that is at once profoundly disturbing and terrifyingly familiar.

Havana Blue

Havana Blue

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Praise for the Havana Quartet:

"Overlaid with a rich smoky patina, an atmosphere that reeks of slums and riches, cigar smoke and exotic perfumes. Havana Black is a strong tasting book, a rich feast of wit and feeling."--The Independent

"Drenched with that beguiling otherness so appealing to fans of mysteries of other cultures, it will also appeal to those who appreciate the sultry lyricism of James Lee Burke."--Booklist

"A great plot, perfectly executed with huge atmosphere. You can almost smell the cigar smoke, rum and cheap women."--Daily Mirror

"Havana Red, another winner from Bitter Lemon Press."--The New York Times

Lieutenant Mario Conde is suffering from a terrible New Year's Eve hangover. Though it's the middle of a weekend, he is asked to urgently investigate the mysterious disappearance of Rafael Morin, a high-level business manager in the Cuban nomenklatura. Conde remembered Morin from their student days: good-looking, brilliant, a "reliable comrade'' who always got what he wanted, including Tamara, the girl Conde was after.

But Rafael Morin's exemplary rise from a poor barrio and picture-perfect life hides more than one suspicious episode worthy of investigation. While pursuing the case in a decaying but adored Havana, Conde confronts his lost love for Tamara and the dreams and illusions of his generation.

INSPECTOR SINGH INVESTIGATES:

INSPECTOR SINGH INVESTIGATES:

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The portly, methodical Inspector Singh is a thorn in the side of his bosses on the Singapore police department, so they send him off to Malaysia to monitor the trial of Chelsea Liew, a Singaporean beauty queen accused of killing her abusive millionaire ex-husband. The plot, revolving around the difference between secular and Islamic custody laws, is unexpectedly intricate and surprising. But the keenest pleasures of this book center on Inspector Singh, and his attempts to see justice served while somehow maneuvering around his excessively zealous sergeant, keeping his white sneakers clean, and scoring the occasional tasty snack.
Maltese Falcon

Maltese Falcon

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Sam Spade, a slightly shop-worn private eye with his own solitary code of ethics, stars in Hammett's detective fiction, a novel that has haunted 2 generations of readers.
Needle in a Haystack

Needle in a Haystack

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This is not simply a triumph of style; it is both a reflection on a time of bloodshed and a raw vision of human misery.--Guillermo Saccomanno, winner of the Argentine National Literature Prize

This man knows. He knows about guns, knows about women, knows about dead bodies. . . . But above all he knows how to narrate.--Ana María Shua, author of El peso de la tentación

Superintendent Lascano is a detective working under the shadow of military rule in Buenos Aires in the late 1970s. Sent to investigate a double murder, he arrives at the crime scene to find three bodies. Two are clearly the work of the Junta's death squads, murders he is forced to ignore; the other one seems different.

The trail leads Lascano through a decadent Argentina, a country poisoned to its core by the tyranny of the regime. The third corpse turns out to be that of Biterman, moneylender and Auschwitz survivor. When Lascano digs too deep, he must confront Giribaldi, an army major, quick to help old friends but ruthless in dealing with dissenters such as Eva, the young militant with whom Lascano is falling in love.

Born in 1948, Ernesto Mallo is a published essayist, newspaper columnist, screenwriter, and playwright. He is a former anti-Junta militant who was pursued by the dictatorship. Needle in a Hay Stack is his first novel and the first in a trilogy with superintendent Lascano. The first two are being made into films.

Rip Crew

Rip Crew

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In this "taut, tense international thriller" (Alafair Burke), streetwise U.S. agent Valentine Pescatore investigates a brutal killing that reveals a vast conspiracy of wealth and power. One of Kirkus Reviews's Best Mysteries of the Year!

Valentine Pescatore, the globetrotting former Border Patrol agent, finds himself back on American soil investigating the merciless killing of a group of women in a motel room. At first, the crime seems to be a straightforward case of gangsters battling for territory. Soon, however, the motive is revealed to be much deeper and more sinister: a single witness who knows too much is being hunted, at any cost.

From an author who has been praised for his "pounding action scenes [and] ferocious prose style" (Marilyn Stasio, NYTBR), Rip Crew races at breakneck speed as Pescatore finds himself face-to-face with his most terrifying assignment yet.

Valentine Pescatore, the globetrotting former Border Patrol agent, finds himself back on American soil investigating the merciless killing of a group of women in a motel room. At first, the crime seems to be a straightforward case of gangsters battling for territory. Soon, however, the motive is revealed to be much deeper and more sinister: a single witness who knows too much is being hunted, at any cost.

SANDS OF WINDEE

SANDS OF WINDEE

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Why had Luke Marks driven specially out to Windee? Had he been murdered or had he, as the local police believed, wandered away from his car and been overwhelmed in a dust-storm? When Bony noticed something odd in the background of a police photograph, he begins to piece together the secrets of the sands of Windee. Here is the original background to the infamous Snowy Rowles murder trial.

'Napoleon Bonaparte my best detective.' - Daily Mail

SHADOW WALKER

SHADOW WALKER

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'A crime debut that evokes modern Mongolia with vividness and flair?a robust and entertaining first novel.' ( The Age)

As winter falls upon the streets of Ulan Bataar, Mongolia, a serial killer is just getting warmed up. When the mutilated body of a fourth victim is found in one of the city's most expensive hotels, Nergui, the former head of the Serious Crimes squad, is no closer to catching the killer and will accept any help he can get.

Drew McLeish, a senior British CID officer and no stranger to the savage side of human nature, is sent out to lend his expertise to the investigation. From the abandoned factories of the city's decaying suburbs to the icy expanse of the barren steppes, Nergui and McLeish follow a trail of the dead.